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The opening lines of Leisure, by Newport’s immortal poet and self-styled “supertramp”, W.H. Davies, flicker through my mind as I make mental lists of all the things I’d like or should but don’t have time to do: “What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare? ”.

Later the same wind-blast day, I try cycling into town but get blown off course. Streets are strewn with broken glass and last night’s recycling. Newspapers flap like mad distressed birds. Shutters bang, shops are closed, park gates locked, so no possibility of taking a walk there… I stare through them and watch branches fall in slow motion to the ground…

Mad wind storms blew all night long at speeds of up to 50km. Mid October, yet before dawn the temperature was already 20°C and the dry wind felt desert-hot. A neighbour’s house cordoned off the end of our street: his new roof lies in shards on the tarmac below. All day long fire engines and ambulances will ring their bells…

Here we go again. The Head at my son’s new school says he’s not prepared to “take the risk” of allowing my son to eat his packed lunch in the school canteen. The contents of a vegetarian’s lunch box could feasibly wipe out the local population with a superbug?

Fascinating discussion at supper about misunderstandings that fall in the gap between what women say and what men hear (c.f., I suppose, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) and the 12 yr old asks, “What about hermaphrodites?”

Parental authority has all but melted away since my sons discovered the power of making Mama laugh. Attempts to appear cross are cut to shreds by razor-sharp wit, stern words twisted into a burlesque of Flying Circus routines, mealtimes degenerate into a farce officiated by food-throwing wayward chimps. Thank goodness.

The last time I gazed across this valley at skittering clouds casting fast-moving shadows on patchwork fields, all was otherwordly green (see 37). Months on, fields ploughed, the farming year a rich ever-changing tapestry but still the buzzard hovers, having spotted his prey.

Two days ago I was moved to poetry in the vineyards above the town and vowed to come back with my camera to capture glorious dusty purples and rich autumn hues. In the interim, the grapes have been harvested and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The lesson, of course, is carpe diem…

The man next door shouts all day long except at 6am when he sits, in silence, in the dark, on the bench outside our house and watches as I open the shutters. Not unhinged so much as not the full quid, he shares his poky little cave of a house with a cat who luckily is deaf.

Mme F. opens her door twice a day to let her fat, rank-smelling, hound out to crap in front of ours. Polite requests to clean up and my daily cheery “Bonjour Madam!”s are studiously ignored. Until today, when she screamed “La Merde!”, turned her back on me and slapped her ageing, sizeable arse.

Older son sang a few notes in his first music theory lesson and was told he must join the conservatoire choir. The following week a very excited choir leader told me his (bass) voice is so truly exceptional he mustjoin the choir that’s about to perform and record a CD in a famous UNESCO heritage cathedral…